Dive Wells, Mummies, and Fancy Tricks

Fancy Tricks

Back at the Octagon, I zone off a room to the right. Using the Tomb Objects tab, I select the Dive Well object and make three of them in the center of the room. Before doing anything with them, I select the Inscription Plague object, and I place one behind each Dive Well.

I’m going to have each Dive Well lead to a different room with a different object, but I’m going to go a little overboard on special effects just for the heck of it and to demonstrate some of the fancier things you can do. But first, we’re going to add a little bit of hint using the inscription plagues.

I CSC the first plague, then select “Enter Text.” I simply type the phrase “To excitement!” and confirm it. Now when the explorer reads that sign, a popup box will display the phrase for the player, though of course it doesn’t give much in the way of detail. For the middle inscription plague I use “To adventure!,” and for the right one I use “To fresh air!”

Let’s do the one on the left first. I CSC the Dive Well, then “Set Water Color… > Red” to give the impression this won’t be entirely safe. I go into Build Mode, then zone a basement below this room, then zone a basement under that so we’re down to the third basement. There’s a reason behind my madness, trust me: by going two floors down, I’ve now disoriented the player a bit so he doesn’t immediately know where he is. In this case, that’s a good thing.

This third basement is a large room. I place an obvious door near the Dive Well, but lock it with a CSC. Now I place a plain sarcophagus in the same room as the player, and this is where the fun starts. I CSC the sarcophagus, then select “Set Mummy Chance… > Always.” A second CSC, and I select “Link Triggers… > Open.” A third CSC, and I select “Link to Activated Behavior… > Release Tomb Mummy.” This, naturally, means the instant the player opens the door, he gets assaulted by a mummy… provided the mummy is smart enough to attack, anyway, which is something we can’t guarantee.

Now we do yet another CSC, and select the treasure components. We make the One Time Treasure Component a Crescent Keystone, and Regular Treasure Components are $$$. This means the first time the player gets the treasure, he’ll get a keystone; otherwise, he’ll get a small amount of cash.

Okay, back to our obvious door. We place a Keystone Panel object next to our door. Then, we CSC it and select “Set Shape… > Crescent Keystone.” Then, we do a CSC, “Link Triggers… > Insert Keystone,” CSC the door, and select “Link Activated Behavior… > Unlock.” Inside that small room, I set up a treasure box that gives 3 objects of Egypt Tomb Loot – Medium.

Now we need to finish up linking our Dive Wells. I CSC this Dive Well, set its color to red, CSC it again, then pick “Change This Well’s Name” and set it to “Excitement Exit.” Now for the most important selection of all… I CSC it, and select “Make this an uber warp well.”

By default, Dive Wells don’t warp anywhere. However, there are two types of warping available. If you choose “Make this a warp well,” then exploring it will lead an explorer to the closest Dive Well. If you choose “Make this an uber warp well,” you can select the destination based on the well’s name. Players won’t see the name, so really we don’t have to be as fancy as naming it “Excitement Exit,” but I’m a perfectionist.

After selecting “Make this an uber warp well,” it prompts me to enter a name. I’m going to name the first well “Excitement Entrance,” so I type that now. I then tap Page Up twice to get back to the first basement, then rename the first red Dive Well to “Excitement Entrance.” Finally, I CSC our Excitement Entrance Dive Well, set to be an uber warp well, and type its destination as “Excitement Exit.” Just like that, I’ve created a two- way Dive Well transportation system.

Let’s do another. For the right Dive Well, I change its color to Crazy, and I rename it “Fresh Air Entrance.” I tap Page Up so we get to the surface of the grass. I zone off a bit of the grass with a fence. Now, I’m going to show you another fun little trick. I stick a treasure chest at the far end of the mini room, and I place a couple normal statues between the Dive Well and the box…

Now I put down a trap directly in front of the treasure chest. Using CSC, I change it to a dart trap, set it to be disarmed by the player, and set its state to “Armed and Hidden.” As the player approaches the chest, he gets shot with darts and pays for his greed! He can disarm the trap, however. If he does, he can get some Amazing Nectar for his efforts.

After that, I link the up Dive Wells, and I return to the first basement. I name the remaining Dive Well “Adventure Entrance,” then set it as an uber warp well to “Adventure Exit.” We haven’t built the Adventure Exit well yet, but we can set it now anyway.

I zone off an adjacent room that’s inaccessible by any means other than the well, and now it’s time for a little fancy trigger rather than this basic floor switch stuff. After setting the Dive Well, I zone off a little a little room and stick an inscription plague beside the next door. I set it so the player must read the inscription before the door unlocks, just so he realizes what’s going on in the next room. The inscription simply reads, “How many statues are outside?”

In the next room, I set up nine inscription plagues. In front of each one I place a floor switch with feet. For the text of the inscription plagues, I just enter numbers from 1 through 9. Across the room, I zone off a tiny room blocked by a door. I CSC the switch in front of the 6 inscription plague, then allow it to unlock the door. In the tiny room, I place an end table and stick a keystone on it. I set the shape as the Keystone of the Dragon.

So as you can see, I simply posed a question to the player: how many statues are outside? The answer is six. So when he stands on the switch in front of the 6 plague, the door opens for him because he answered correctly.

All right, back to the Octagon to finish this up. On the walls opposite the entrance, I place a wall switch on the right side of the rubble pile that opens a door to the other rubble pile. In that door is a small room with a treasure chest, a door, and a keystone panel set to accept the Keystone of the Insect. The next room has the same thing, with the panel set to accept the Keystone of the Dragon. In the final room is one last treasure chest, flanked by Anubis statues. This, finally, is the last room!